Alberta oil shipped through Panama Canal to Atlantic Canada to avert COVID-19 threat to energy supply
On July 20, the tanker Cabo de Hornos delivered an estimated 450,000 barrels of crude oil to the Irving Oil refinery’s Canaport storage facilities in Saint John, N.B.
By the end of April next year, a second tanker will arrive at Canaport carrying 350,000 to one million barrels of Western Canadian crude oil. In this case, the oil will have come via pipeline from Alberta to a crude oil exporting terminal in Texas or Louisiana.
For most of the Saint John refinery’s 50 years of operation, it has relied on crude oil from sources outside Canada, including Saudi Arabia, the United States, Norway and Nigeria, to meet most of its demand. In 2019, about 80 per cent came from non-Canadian sources, with the remainder from offshore Newfoundland and Labrador by tanker and Western Canada by rail.
The rest of the article is here. I don't know the cost difference. There are emissions to think about too. If the oil is brought in from a foreign source, then I would think only the emissions created while using it are counted. If we use Alberta oil, then we have the emissions created in its extraction, transportation and consumption.